Clusters of galaxies have not yet been detected at gamma-ray frequencies; however, the recently launched Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly known as GLAST, could provide the first detections in the near future. Clusters are expected to emit gamma rays as a result of (1) a population of high-energy cosmic rays fueled by accretion, merger shocks, active galactic nuclei and supernovae, and (2) particle dark matter annihilation. In this paper, we ask the question of whether the Fermi telescope will be able to discriminate between the two emission processes. We present data-driven predictions for the gamma-ray emission from cosmic rays and dark matter for a large X-ray flux limited sample of galaxy clusters and groups. We point out that the gamma-ray signals from cosmic rays and dark matter can be comparable. In particular, we find that poor clusters and groups are the systems predicted to have the highest dark matter to cosmic ray emission ratio at gamma-ray energies. Based on detailed Fermi simulations, we study observational handles that might enable us to distinguish the two emission mechanisms, including the gamma-ray spectra, the spatial distribution of the signal and the associated multi-wavelength emissions. We also propose optimal hardness ratios, which will help to understand the nature of the gamma-ray emission. Our study indicates that gamma rays from dark matter annihilation with a high particle mass can be distinguished from a cosmic ray spectrum even for fairly faint sources. Discriminating a cosmic ray spectrum from a light dark matter particle will be instead much more difficult, and will require long observations and/or a bright source. While the gamma-ray emission from our simulated clusters is extended, determining the spatial distribution with Fermi will be a challenging task requiring an optimal control of the backgrounds.PACS numbers: 98.70. Rz, 95.35+d, 98.80.Cq, 12.60.Jv I. INTRODUCTIONClusters and groups of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound matter structures observed in the Universe. Although these objects are expected to host several high energy phenomena, the resulting electromagnetic non-thermal emission is far from being fully understood [1,2]. A hallmark of the occurrence of non-thermal phenomena in these large structures is the detection, in numerous clusters, of extended radio emission associated to the synchrotron losses of relativistic cosmic-ray electrons [1,2,3,4,5]. The acceleration of cosmic rays in galaxy clusters can originate from a number of physical processes, including violent shocks produced in cluster-cluster mergers and the accretion of smaller structures [6,7,8,9], the re-acceleration of cosmic rays injected by galactic sources like active galactic nuclei and supernovae [10], and inelastic collisions of primary cosmic-ray protons [13] producing showers of secondary particles, including relativistic electrons and positrons as well as gamma rays.The radio emission from clusters, perhaps the most solid source of observational information on non-ther...

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We show that more than two generations of quarks and leptons are required to have an anomaly free discrete R symmetry larger than R parity, provided that the supersymmetric standard model can be minimally embedded into a grand unified theory. This connects an explanation for the number of generations with seemingly unrelated problems such as supersymmetry breaking, proton decay, the μ problem, and the cosmological constant through a discrete R symmetry. We also show that three generations is uniquely required by a nonanomalous discrete R symmetry in classes of grand unified theories such as the ones based on (semi)simple gauge groups.

While axions seem ubiquitous in critical string theories, whether they might survive in any string theoretic description of nature is a difficult question. With some mild assumptions, one can frame the issues in the case that there is an approximate supersymmetry below the underlying string scale. The problem of axions is then closely tied to the question of how moduli are fixed. We consider, from this viewpoint, the possibility that supersymmetry is broken at an intermediate scale, as in "gravity mediation", at a low scale, as in gauge mediation, and at a very high scale, to model the possibility that there is no low energy supersymmetry. Putative mechanisms for moduli fixing can then be systematically classified, and at least for intermediate and high scale breaking, light axions appear plausible. In the course of this work, we are lead to consider aspects of moduli fixing and supersymmetry breaking, and we revisit the possibility of very large extra dimensions.

Upcoming gravitational wave (GW) detectors might detect a stochastic background of GWs potentially arising from many possible sources, including bubble collisions from a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition. We investigate whether it is possible to connect, via a semi-analytical approximation to the tunneling rate of scalar fields with quartic potentials, the GW signal through detonations with the parameters entering the potential that drives the electroweak phase transition. To this end, we consider a finite temperature effective potential similar in form to the Higgs potential in the Standard Model (SM). In the context of a semi-analytic approximation to the three dimensional Euclidean action, we derive a general approximate form for the tunneling temperature and the relevant GW parameters. We explore the GW signal across the parameter space describing the potential which drives the phase transition. We comment on the potential detectability of a GW signal with future experiments, and physical relevance of the associated potential parameters in the context of theories which have effective potentials similar in form to that of the SM. In particular we consider singlet, triplet, higher dimensional operators, and top-flavor extensions to the Higgs sector of the SM. We find that the addition of a temperature independent cubic term in the potential, arising from a gauge singlet for instance, can greatly enhance the GW power. The other parameters have milder, but potentially noticeable, effects.